November 6, 2010

23 comments:

What's the problem? It looks to me like they've figured out (unlike Newsweek and others) where the future of magazine journalism is. Daily and weekly stuff can and should be on the web or in smartphone apps, and the special additions that are their unique content (like the US News annual college reviews) can be sold on paper for those who want such things in depth, because those editions really are more like almanacs. I would't mock or cry for US News here.

The realization that they are in the journalism business, not the magazine business seems like a break through to me. If more news companies thought like this maybe they wouldn't be going down the tubes.

Have to agree with JR and (hate to say it) somefeller. JR's point that they are in "journalism business, not the magazine business" is the sort of thing I kept hearing in a marketing strategies class about a year ago where the prof was explaining how industry leaders can fall by the wayside.

As to their online efforts ... Bwahahahahaha! Have their advertisers not heard of Ad Block Plus? Nobody is seeing your advertising. It's being suppressed by our brower software because that's how we in the digital world can punish you for funding liberal Socialists.

What a tremendous waste of your company's scarce advertising resources.

I was talking to someone recently about my apprehension that sooner than we expect it, newsstands and bookstores will start to disappear from the land, as all publishing will move to a digital model. As bookstore browsing is a lifelong addiction of mine, I anticipate a world without bookstores with horror.

Hell, it's already difficult to find actual record stores that sell music in physical form...and I'm in NYC! What is it already like across the land?

I can see art books continuing to be published on paper between boards, given the need for high-quality reproductions of works of art...but then again, who knows? Maybe the publishers will consider digital reproductions to be good enough...considering the savings in costs.

Robert Cook: Bookstore browsing is a passion of mine as well and something I have done going on fifty years. I am sure you find that you know the whereabouts of the stock of your favorites better than the staff. I certainly do.

Does anyone know of an analysis of what the printing and mailing cost of a typical news magazine is, and therefore how much cheaper an online subscription could be, differences in advertising revenue aside?

Professor...IMO those U. S. News rankings of law schools are like the BCS Bowl System. Only after the out standing in their field Ivys are stuck in as the usual winners is any strange "Science" of subjective tea leaf reading of subjective categories displayed for the also rans. A school like Wisconsin or Emory has as much chance at a National Championship as TCU does against weak sister Ohio State Big Ten types and Alabama SEC types. But like a Who's Who Book, it sells lots of copies to the schools that they place higher in the rankings than last years issue did.